


The Defiance of Memory

by virdant



Category: Glee
Genre: A meditation on what it means to be free, Gen, Inspired by Hadestown, M/M, Memory Loss, Not an Orpheus/Eurydice story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25270396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant
Summary: He is merely a worker, but he remembers: flowers and sunshine, wine and laughter and promises, a song that was beautiful enough to give him hope. He remembers that there was an other that he once loved. He does not remember his name.For Seblaine Week 2020 Day 3: Free
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Sebastian Smythe
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17
Collections: Seblaine Week 2020





	The Defiance of Memory

**Author's Note:**

> A meditation on the word free.

He remembers fields of flowers.

They’re soft under his hands. Fragile. He’s laughing as he falls backwards under the other’s weight. The other straddles him, strong limbs and bright smile. The air blooms with scent: sweet, clean, easy.

The sun is warm, and times are easy. His belly is full, and he laughs as the other bends down, tilts his head, lifts his hands to cradle the other’s cheeks. He smiles, and he can feel the weight of the other’s gaze as it fills his belly, warms his blood. 

He should stay here. He should reach for the other’s hand. He should he should he should.

He turns away, instead.

The air trembles, thick and warm from boilers and humid from steam. It is a new day of work, and he takes his place on the line without another word.

\---

He remembers sunshine.

The sun is bright and warm, and he turns his face to the sun. The other is next to him, face similarly upturned. They stand like flowers, growing towards the light. His hand splays open by his side, the other takes it in his own. Their fingers press together, twining together like roots of plants close to each other. Like if they tried hard enough, then they could grow as one, twine together until one began where the other ended. Like if they tried hard enough, they would never need to part.

The sun is bright and warm, and it was not enough.

He is rooted in dying earth, so he walks away.

It is warm and bright here, in this new place. He works, his back bent, toiling before burning boilers and suffocating under steam. He is building a wall, and he bends and rises in unison with the rest of the line. The work is freeing, unending. The air hums with the drone of it, the pounding beat of one note repeating itself without end.

Sweat drips off of his brow. It is hot, here. It is bright, here. He does not raise his head.

It feels nothing like the sun.

\---

He remembers wine, laughter, and promises pressed to his fingertips.

They are sweet on his tongue, and when he tastes it, the corners of his lips rise of their own accord. The room is warm and bright: laughter, joy, wine and promises.

The other leans in close, promises on his lips, and he catches them before they can spill on the ground. They trade them, back and forth, softly and intimately. Promises of the future, promises to each other, promises and promises because they have nothing else to offer.

The other breathes promises with every breath they take, and he wants to believe. He wants, he wants, he wants, but he cannot.

He is alone, and he cannot remember what was promised, only that it was beautiful, and he couldn’t believe it. He is here, and he is working, and the work is a promise of its own. A promise of the future. The other did not have anything to offer him, but the work does. The work offers him stability. The work offers him work. He has something to do. 

His hands are busy. He does not smile. He does not laugh. There is no wine, here. There is just work, and the work must be done.

The other is not here.

He does not remember the other’s name.

\---

He remembers a song.

The other is singing it. His voice lilts over the notes, rises high and clean and pure, dips down warm and sweet. It sounds like the ripples of a river, like a spring breeze, like promises and sunlight and flowers.

The other’s lips move, and he yearns to hear it, but he cannot remember the song, only that it was beautiful, and he couldn’t believe it. There is no music, here, just work. Just the steady drum of footsteps marching, the crack of backs bending as they toil, the cramp of hands wrapped tight against tools as they build a wall. 

There is no music. There is work. The work is enough.

Sweat drips off his brow. The air is boiling, and he works. His arms ache. He is suffocating, and he works. He toils. He is tired, and he works. There are others around him, and they work as one, their arms moving in unison, their feet marching in unison, their eyes never straying from their work.

They are building a wall.

He cannot remember anything else.

\---

He does not remember his name, but he had one, once. He knows he had a name, and he knows that he loved the other with everything he had to love.

But it had not been enough.

He does not have a name, now, but he has his work. He does not have another to hold his hand and sing songs and offer promises and grow towards the sunlight and lie in fields of flowers with. He has his work. He does not have a song, or promises, or sunlight, or flowers, but he has his work.

They are building a wall. 

He has his work.

So he works.

\---

They are building a wall. It is a mighty wall. It is a good wall. It is a wall, and they build it. They were told to build it, so they build it. One stone after another. One piece after another. They wake and they work. They sleep and they do not dream. They wake again and they return to work.

He is building a wall. 

He is building.

He is—

\---

There is a boy standing before him, pants scuffed and ripped, dirt dark against his cheek, hands soft except where callouses have grown from plucking at strings.

“Come home with me,” he says, and he offers a hand. He stands with his heart on his sleeve, with promises on his lips. They are different promises, not promises of laughter, of sunshine, of flowers, but promises of something else. Promises of a hand in his. Promises of one foot before the other. Promises of growing together, even if there is no sunlight to grow towards. “Come home, Sebastian.”

He is Sebastian, and the other who he loved is here, has come, and he is—

Sebastian steps away from the line, towards freedom, and when he takes the other’s hand, he remembers: who he is, what he wants, his hopes and dreams, and the boy he loves, “Blaine.”

He is not just a worker. He is a person, with hopes and dreams. He loves, he hopes, he strives. He is more than calloused hands and willing body.

His name is Sebastian, and he remembers.

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I need to write something for free day but I don't like this open-ended nonsense I believe in interpreting the word free literally.  
> Ellie: Write a Hadestown AU  
> Me: But I already wrote an Orpheus/Eudyrice AU years ago.  
> Ellie: Not an Orpheus/Eurydice AU. A Hadestown AU. About the word free.  
> Me: oh. OH. yes, that can work.  
> And then I sat down and banged this out in under an hour while listening to Flowers on repeat.
> 
> Leave a kudo or comment! Find me on twitter and say hi. Links to fic tweet and personal twitter to come.


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